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EVANGELINE 

BY 

H. W. LONGFELLOW 
WITH NOTES 

AND 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 






HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

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EVANGELINE 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 



V/ITH NOTES 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 




HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Boiton : 4 Park Street ; New York : 11 East Seventeenth StrMt 
Chicago: 28 Lakeside Building 



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Copyright, 1866, 
Bt henry WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Copyright, 1879, 
By HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 

Copyright, 1883, 
Bt HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 



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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, 
Maine, February 27, 1807. He was a classmate of Haw- 
thorne at Bowdoin College, graduating there in the class of 
1825. He began the study of law in the ofi&ce of his father, 
Hon. Stephen LongfeUow; but receiving shortly the ap- 
pointment of professor of modern languages at Bowdoin, 
he devoted himself after that to literature, and to teaching 
in connection with literature. Before beginning his work 
at Bowdoin he increased his qualifications by travel and 
study in Europe, where he stayed three years. Upon his 
return he gave his lectures on modern languages and litera- 
ture at the college, and wrote occasionally for the North 
American Review and other periodicals. The first volume 
which he published was an Essaij on the Moral and Devo- 
tional Poetry of Spain, accompanied by translations from 
Spanish verse. This was issued in 1833, but has not been 
kept in print as a separate work. It appears as a chapter 
in Outre-Mer, a reflection of his European life and travel, 
the first of his prose writings. In 1835 he was invited to 
succeed Mr. George Ticknor as professor of modern lan- 
guages and literature at Harvard College, and again went 
to Europe for preparatory study, giving especial attention 
to Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries. He held 
his professorship until 1854, but continued to live in Cam- 
bridge until his death, March 24, 1882, occupying a house 
known from a former occupant as the Craigie house, and 



EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE. 

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 

[The country now known as Nova Scotia, and called 
formerly Acadie by the French, was in the hands of the 
French and English by turns until the year 1713, when, by 
the Peace of Utrecht, it was ceded by France to Great Brit- 
ain, and has ever since remained in the possession of the 
English. But in 1713 the inhabitants of the peninsula were 
mostly French farmers and fishermen, living about Minas 
Basin and on Annapolis River, and the English government 
exercised only a nominal control over them. It was not till 
1749 that the English themselves began to make settlements 
in the country, and that year they laid the foundations of 
the town of Halifax. A jealousy soon sprang up between 
the English and French settlers, which was deepened by the 
great conflict which was impending between the two mother 
countries ; for the treaty of peace at Aix-la-ChajDelle in 
1748, which confirmed the English title to Nova Scotia, was 
scarcely more than a truce between the two powers which 
had been struggling for ascendency during the beginning 
of the century. The French engaged in a long controversy 
with the English respecting the boundaries of Acadie, which 
had been defined by the treaties in somewhat general terms, 
and intrigues were carried on with the Indians, who were 
generally in sympathy with the French, for the annoyance 
of the English settlers. The Acadians were allied to the 
French by blood and by religion, but they claimed to have 
the rights of neutrals, and that these rights had been 



EVANGELINE. 5 

gi'anted to them by previous English officers of the crown. 
The one point of special dispute was the oath of allegiance 
demanded of the Acadians by the English. This they re- 
fused to take, except in a form modified to excuse them 
from bearing arms against the French. The demand was 
repeatedly made, and evaded with constant ingenuity and 
persistency. Most of the Acadians were probably simple- 
minded and peaceful people, who desired only to live undis» 
turbed upon theii* farms ; but there were some restless spir- 
its, especially among the young men, who compromised the 
reputation of the community, and all were very much under 
the influence of their priests, some of whom made no secret 
of their bitter hostility to the English, and of their deter- 
mination to use every means to be rid of them. 

As the English interests grew and the critical relations 
between the two countries approached open warfare, the 
question of how to deal with the Acadian problem became 
the commanding one of the colony. There were some who 
coveted the rich farms of the Acadians ; there were some 
who were inspired by religious hatred ; but the prevailing 
spirit was one of fear for themselves from the near presence 
of a community which, calling itself neutral, might at any 
time offer a convenient ground for hostile attack. Yet to 
require these people to withdraw to Canada or Louisburg 
would be to strengthen the hands of the French, and make 
these neutrals determined enemies. The colony finally re- 
solved, without consulting the home government, to remove 
the Acadians to other parts of North America, distributing 
them through the colonies in such a way as to preclude any 
concert amongst the scattered families by which they should 
return to Acadia. To do this required quick and secret 
preparations. There were at the service of the English 
governor a number of New England troops, brought thither 
for the capture of the forts lying in the debatable land about 
the head of the Bay of Fundy. These were under the com- 
mand of Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, of Massachu- 



b HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

setts, a great-grandson of Governor Edward Winslow, of 
Plymouth, and to this gentleman and Captain Alexander 
Murray was intrusted the task of removal. They were in- 
structed to use stratagem, if possible, to bring together the 
various families, but to prevent any from escaping to the 
woods. On the 2d of September, 1755, Winslow issued a 
written order, addressed to the inhabitants of Grand-Pre, 
Minas, Rive.r Canard, etc., " as well ancient as young men 
and lads," — a proclamation summoning all the males to 
attend him in the church at Grand-Pre on the 5th instant, 
to hear a communication which the governor had sent. As 
there had been negotiations respecting the oath of allegiance, 
and much discussion as to the withdrawal of the Acadians 
from the country, though none as to their removal and dis- 
persal, it was understood that this was an important meet- 
ing, and upon the day named four hundred and eighteen 
men and boys assembled in the church. Winslow, attended 
by his officers and men, caused a guard to be jDlaced round 
the church, and then announced to the people his majesty's 
decision that they were to be removed with their families 
out of the country. The church became at once a guard- 
house, and all the prisoners were under strict surveillance. 
At the same time similar plans had been carried out at Pisi- 
quid under Captain Murray, and less successfully at Chig- 
necto. Meanwhile tliere were whispers of a rising among 
the prisoners, and although the transports which had been 
ordered from Boston had not yet arrived, it was determined 
to make use of the vessels which had conveyed the troops, 
and remove the men to these for safer keeping. This was 
done on the 10th of September, and the men remained on 
the vessels in the harbor until the arrival of the transports, 
when these were made use of, and about three thousand 
souls sent out of the country to North Carolina, Virginia, 
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Mas- 
sachusetts. In the haste and confusion of sending them off, 
— a haste which was increased by the anxiety of the offi- 



EVANGELINE. 1 

cers to be rid of the distasteful business, and a confusion 
which was greater from the difference of tongues, — many- 
families were separated, and some at least never came to- 
gether again. 

The story of Evangeline is the story of such a separation. 
The removal of the Acadians was a blot upon the govern- 
ment of Nova Scotia and upon that of Great Britain, which 
never disowned the deed, although it was probably done 
without direct permission or command from England. It 
proved to be unnecessary, but it must also be remembered 
that to many men at that time the English power seemed 
trembling before France, and that the colony at Halifax 
regarded the act as one of self-preservation. 

The authorities for an historical inquiry into this subject 
are best seen in a volume published by the government of 
Nova Scotia at Halifax in 1869, entitled Selections from 
the Public Documents of the Province of Nova Scotia^ 
edited by Thomas B. Akins. D. C. L., Commissioner of 
Public Records ; and in a manuscript journal kept by Col- 
onel Winslow, now in the cabinet of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society in Boston. At the State House in Boston 
are two volumes of records, entitled French Neutrals, which 
contain voluminous papers relating to the treatment of the 
Acadians who were sent to Massachusetts. Probably the 
work used by the poet in writing Evangeline was An His- 
torical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, by Thomas 
C. Haliburton, who is best known as the author of The Clock- 
Maker, or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of 
Slickville, a book which, written apparently to prick the 
Nova Scotians into more enterprise, was for a long while the 
chief representative of Yankee smartness. Judge Halibur= 
ton's history was published in 1829. A later history, which 
takes advantage more freely of historical documents, is A 
History of Nova Scotia, or Acadie, by Beamish Murdock, 
Esq., Q. C, Halifax, 1866. Still more recent is a smaller, 
well-written work, entitled The History of Acadia from its 



8 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

First Discovery to its Surrender to England hy the Treaty 
of Paris, by James Hannay, St. John, N. B., 1879. W. J. 
Anderson published a paper in the Transactions of the Lit- 
erary and Historical Society of Quebec, New Series, part 7, 
1870, entitled Evangeline and the Archives of Nova Sco^ 
tia, in which he examines the poem by the light of the vol- 
ume of Nova Scotia Archives, edited by T. B. Akins. The 
sketches of travellers in Nova Scotia, as Acadia, or a Month 
among the Blue Noses, by F. S. Cozzens, and Baddeck, by 
C. D. Warner, give the present appearance of the country 
and inhabitants. 

The measure of Evangeline is what is commonly known 
as English dactylic hexameter. The hexameter is the mea- 
sure used by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and by 
Virgil in the uEneid, but the difference between the Eng- 
lish language and the Latin or Greek is so great, especially 
when we consider that in English poetry every word must 
be accented according to its customary pronounciation, 
while in scanning Greek and Latin verse accent follows the 
quantity of the vowels, that in applying this term of hexa^ 
meter to Evangeline it must not be supposed by the reader 
that he is getting the effect of Greek hexameters. It is the 
Greek hexameter translated into English use, and some 
have maintained that the verse of the Iliad is better repre- 
sented in the English by the trochaic measure of fifteen syl- 
lables, of which an excellent illustration is in Tennyson's 
Locksley Hall ; others have compared the Greek hexameter 
to the ballad metre of fourteen syllables, used notably by- 
Chapman in his translation of Homer's Iliad. The mea= 
sure adopted by Mr. Longfellow has never become very 
popular in English poetry, but has repeatedly been at- 
tempted by other poets. The reader will find the subject 
of hexameters discussed by Matthew Arnold in his lectures 
On Translating Homer ; by James Spedding in English 
Hexameters, in his recent volume. Reviews and Discus- 
sions, Literary, Political and Historical, not relating to 



EVANGELINE. 



9 



Bacon ; and by John Stuart Blackie in Remarks on Eng- 
lish Hexameters, contained in his volume EorcB Eelle- 

niece. 

The measure lends itself easily to the lingering melan- 
choly which marks the greater part of the poem, and the 
poet's fine sense of harmony between subject and form is 
rarely better shown than in this poem. The fall of the 
verse at the end of the line and the sharp recovery at the 
beginning of the next will be snares to the reader, who 
must beware of a jerking style of delivery. The voice nat. 
urally seeks a rest in the middle of the line, and this rest, 
or c^sural pause, should be carefully regarded ; a little 
practice will enable one to acquire that habit of reading the 
hexameter, which we may liken, roughly, to the climbing of 
a hill, resting a moment on the summit, and then descend- 
ing the other side. The charm in reading Evangeline 
aloud, after a clear understanding of the sense, which is the 
essential in aU good reading, is found in this gentle labor of 
the former half of the line, and gentle acceleration of the 
latter half.] 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines 

and the hemlocks, 
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct 

in the twilight. 
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and pra^ 
phetic, 

1. A primeval forest is, strictly speaking, one which has never 
i'oeen disturbed by the axe. 

3. Druids were priests of the Celtic inhabitants of ancient 
Gaul and Britain. The name was probably of Celtic origin, but 
its form may have been determined by the Greek word drus, an 
oak, since their places of worship were consecrated groves of 
oak. Perhaps the choice of the image was governed by the 
analogy of a religion and tribe that were to disappear before a 
stronger power. 



10 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their 
bosoms. 

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neigh- 
boring ocean 5 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 
of the forest. 

This is the forest primevaF; ^but where are the 
hearts that beneath it 

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland 
the voice of the huntsman ? 

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Aca- 
dian farmers, — 

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the 
woodlands, 10 

Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image 
of heaven ? 

Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for- 
ever departed ! 

Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts 
of October 

Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them 
far o'er the ocean. 

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village 
of Grand-Pre. is 



I 



Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endureSj 
and is patient, 



4. A poetical description of an ancient harper will be found 
in the Introduction to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Sir Walter 
Scott. 

8. Observe how the tragedy of the story is anticipated by this 
picture of the startled roe. 



EVANGELINE. 11 

Te who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's 

devotion, 
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines 

of the forest ; 
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy. 



PART thp: first. 

I. 
In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of 

Minas, ''] 

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre 
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched 

to the eastward. 
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks 

without number. 
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with 

labor incessant, 

19. In the earliest records Acadie is called Cadie ; it after- 
wards was called Arcadia, Accadia, or L'Acadie. The name is 
probably a French adaptation of a word common among the 
Micmac Indians living there, signifying place or region, and used 
as an affix to other words as indicating the place where various 
things, as cranberries, eels, seals, were found in abundance. The 
French turned this Indian term into Cadie or Acadie ; the Eng= 
lish into Quoddy, in which form it remains when applied to the 
Quoddy Indians, to Quoddy Head, the last point of the United 
States next to Acadia, and in the compound Passamaquoddy, or 
Pollock-Ground. 

21. Compare, for effect, the first line of Goldsmith's The 
Traveller. Grand- T^rd will be found on the map as part of the 
township of Horton. 

24. The people of Acadia are mainly the descendants of the 
colonists who were brought out to La Have and Port Royal by 
Isaac de Razilly and Charnisay between the years 1633 and 1638. 



12 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

Shut out the turbulent tides ; but at stated seasons the 
flood-gates 2.\ 

Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er 
the meadows. 

West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards 
and cornfields 

Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the j)lain ; and away 
to the northward 

Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the 
mountains 

Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty- 
Atlantic 30 

Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their sta- 
tion descended. 

There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian 
village. 

Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and 
of hemlock. 

Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign 
of the Henries. 

These colonists came from Rochelle, Saintouge, and Poitou, so 
that they were drawn from a very limited area on the west coast 
of France, covered by the modern departments of Vendue and 
Charente Infdrieure. This circumstance had some influence on 
their mode of settling the lands of Acadia, for they came from a 
country of marshes, where the sea was kept out by artificial 
dikes, and they found in Acadia similar marshes, which they dealt 
with in the same way that they had been accustomed to practise 
in France. Hannay's History of Acadia, pp. 282, 283. An excel- 
lent account of dikes and the flooding of lowlands, as practised 
in Holland, may be found in A Farmer's Vacation, by George E. 
Waring, Jr. 

29. Blomidon is a mountainous headland of red sandstone, sur- 
mounted by a perpendicular wall of basaltic trap, the whole about 
four hundred feet in height, at the entrance of the Basin of 
Miuas. 



EVANGELINE. 1^ 

Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows ; and 

gables projecting ^ 

Over the basement below protected and shaded the 

doorway. 
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when 

brightly the sunset 
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the 

chimneys, . 

Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in 

kirtles 
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the 

golden 
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles 

within doors 
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and 

the songs of the maidens. 
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and 

the children 
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to 

bless them. 
Reverend walked he among them ; and up rose ma- 
trons and maidens, , 
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate 

welcome. 
Then came the laborers home from tne field, and se- 
renely the sun sank 
36 The characteristics of a Normandy village may be further 
learned by reference to a pleasant little sketch-book, pubhshed 
a few years since, called Normandy Picturesque, by Henry B ack- 
burn, and to Through Normandy, by Katharine S Macqnoid. 

39. The term kirtle was sometimes applied to the jacket only 
sometimes to the train or upper petticoat attached to it. A tull 
kirtle was always both; a half kirtle was a term apphed to 
either. A man's jacket was sometimes called a kirtle ; here the 
reference is apparently to the full kirtle worn by women. 



14 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from 

the belfry 
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the 

village 
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense 

ascending, so 

Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and 

contentment. 
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian 

farmers, — 
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were 

they free from 
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice 

of republics. 
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their 

windows ; 55 

But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts 

of the owners ; 
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in 

abundance. 

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the 

Basin of Minas, 
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of 

Grand-Pre, 
Dwelt on his goodly acres ; and with him, directing 

his household, eo 

Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of 

the village. 

49. Angelus Domini is the full name given to the bell which, at 
morning, noon, and night, called the people to prayer, in com- 
memoration of the visit of the angel of the Lord to the Virgin 
Mary. It was introduced into France in its modern form in the 
alxteenth century. 



EVANGELINE. 15 

Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy 

winters ; 
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with 

snow-flakes ; 
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as 

brown as the oak-leaves. 
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen sum- 
mers ; 65 
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the 

thorn by the wayside. 
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown 

shade of her tresses ! 
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed 

in the meadows. 
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at 

noontide 
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in sooth was the 

maiden. "o 

Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell 

from its turret 
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with 

his hyssop 
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon 

them, 
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of 

beads and her missal. 
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and 

the ear-rings 75 

Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as 

an heirloom, 
Handed down from mother to child, through long gen- 
erations. 
But a celestial brightness — a more ethereal beauty — 
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after 

confession, 



16 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Hopaeward serenely she walked with God's benedic- 
tion upon her. so 
(^When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of 
exquisite music^ 



Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of 

the farmer 
Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea ; and 

a shady 
Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreath- 
ing around it. 
Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath ; and 

a footpath ss 

Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the 

meadow. 
Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a 

penthouse, 
Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the 

roadside. 
Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of 

Mary. 
Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well 

with its moss-grown 9fl 

Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for 

the horses. 
Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were 

the barns and the farm-yard ; 
There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique 

ploughs and the harrows ; 
There were the folds for the sheep ; and there, in his 

feathered serasflio, D s^ f} ^ J 

'SZ. The accent ki on the first syllasl^le of antique, where it re* C 

mains in the form antic, which once Tiad the same general mean- 
ing. 



EVANGELINE. 17 

Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with 
the selfsame 95 

Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent 
Peter. 

Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a vil- 
lage . In each one 

Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch ; and a 
staircase, 

Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn= 
loft. 

There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and inno- 
cent inmates 100 

Murmuring ever of love ; while above in the variant 
breezes 

Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of, 
mutat 




Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer 

of Grand-Pre 
Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed 

his household. 
Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened 

his missal, 105 

Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest 

devotion ; 

99. Odorous. The accent here, as well as in line 403, is npon 
che first syllable, where it is commonly placed ; but Milton, who 
of all poets had the most refined ear, writes 
" So from the root 
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 
More airy, last the bright consummate flower 
Spirits odorous breathes." 

Par Lost, Book V., lines 479-482. 

But he also uses the more familiar accent in other passages, 
as, " An amber scent of 6dorous perfume," in Samson AgonisteSf 
Une 720. 



18 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem 
of her garment ! 

Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness be- 
friended, 

And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of 
her footsteps, 

Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the 
knocker of iron ; uo 

Or, at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the vil- 
lage, 

Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he* 
whispered 

Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the 
music. 

But among all who came young Gabriel only was 
welcome ; 

Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the black- 
smith, na 

Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored 
of all men ; 

For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and 
nations. 

Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the 
people. 

Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from 
earliest childhood 

Grew up together as brother and sister ; and Father 
Felician, 120 

Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught 
them their letters 

Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the 
church and the plain-song. 
122. The plain-song is a monotonic recitative of the collects. 



EVANGELINE. 19 

But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson 

completed, 
Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the 

blacksmith. 
There at the door they stood, with wondering ej^es to 

behold him 125 

Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a 

plaything. 
Nailing the shoe in its place ; while near him the tire 

of the cart-wheel 
Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of 

cinders. 
Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering 

darkness 
Bursting with light seemed the smithy, tlu'ough every 

cranny and crevice, 130 

Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring 

bellows. 
And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in 

the ashes. 
Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into 

the chapel. 
Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the 

eagle, 
Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o'er the 

meadow. 135 

Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests 

on the rafters. 
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which 

the swallow 
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight 

of its fledglings ; 

133. The French have another saying similar to this, that they 
were guests going in to the wedding. 



20 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the 

swallow ! 
Tims passed a few swift years, and they no longer 
. were children. i4g 

He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of 

the morning. 
Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened 

thought into action. 
She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a 

woman. 
" Sunshine of Saint Eulalie " was she called ; for that 

was the sunshine 
Which, as the farmers believed, would load their 

orchards with apples ; 145 

She too would bring to her husband's house delight 

and abundance. 
Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children. 

II. 

Now had the season returned, when the nights grow 
colder and longer. 
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion en- 
ters. 

139. In Pluquet's Cofites Populaires we are told that if one of 
a swallow's young is blind the mother bird seeks on the shore of 
the ocean a little stone, with which she restores its sight ; and 
he adds, " He who is fortunate enough to find that stone in j? 
swallow's nest holds a wonderful remedy." Pluquet's book 
treats of Norman superstitions and popular traits. 

144. Pluquet also gives this proverbial saying : — 

" Si le soleil rit le jour Sainte-Eulalie, 
II y aura pommes et cidre a folie." 

(If the sun smiles on Saint Eulalie's day, there will be plenty 
of apples, and cider enough.) 

Saint Eulalie's day is the 12th of Febmsyry, 



EVANGELINE. 21 

Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from 
the ice-bound, iso 

Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical is- 
lands. 

Harvests were gathered in ; and wild with the winds 
of September 

Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with 
the angel. 

All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement. 

Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded 
their honey 155 

Till the hives overflowed ; and the Indian hunters as- 
serted 

Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the 
foxes. 

Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed that 
beautiful season, 

Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of 
All-Saints ! 

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light ; 
and the landscape leo 

Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of child- 
hood. 

Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless 
heart of the ocean 

Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in 
harmony blended. 

Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the 
farm-yards, 

159. The Summer of All-Saints is our Indian Summer, All- 
Saints Day being JSTovember 1st. The French also give this sea- 
son the name of Saint Martin's Summer, Saint Martin's Day 
being November 11th. 



22 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of 

pigeons, i65 

All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, 

and the great sun 
Looked with the eye of love through the golden va= 

pors around him ; 
While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and 

yellow. 
Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree 

of the forest 
Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with 

mantles and jewels. no 

Now recommenced the region of rest and affection 
and stillness. 

Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twi- 
light descending 

Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the 
herds to the homestead. 

Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks 
on each other. 

And with their nostrils distended inhaling the fresh- 
ness of evening. 175 

Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful 
heifer, 

Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that 
waved from her collar. 

Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human 
affection. 

170. Herodotus, in his account of Xerxes' expedition against 
Greece, tells of a beautiful plane-tree which Xerxes found, and 
was so enamored with that he dressed it as one might a woman, 
and placed it under the care of a guardsman (vii. 31). Anothei 
writer, ^lian, improving on this, says he adorned it with a neck«« 
lace and bracelets. 



EVANGELINE. 23 

Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks 
from the seaside, 

Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them fol- 
lowed the watch-dog, iso 

Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of 
his instinct, 

Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and 

superbly- 
Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the strag- 
glers ; 

Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; 
their protector. 

When from the forest at night, through the starry 
silence, the wolves howled. i85 

Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from 
the marshes, 

Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor. 

Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes 
and their fetlocks. 

While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and pon- 
derous saddles. 

Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels 
of crimson, 190 

Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with 
blossoms. 

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their 
udders 

Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular 
cadence 

193. There is a charming milkmaid's song in Tennyson's drama 
of Queen Mary, Act III., Scene 5, where the streaming of the 
milk into the sounding pails is caught in the tinkling ^'6* of such 
lines as 

" And you came and kissed me, milking the cow." 



24 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets de^ 

scended. 
Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in 

the farm-yard, 195 

Echoed back by the barns. AnoH they sank into 

stillness ; 
Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the 

barn-doors, 
Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent. 

In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly 
the farmer 

Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames 
and the smoke-wreaths 200 

Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Be- 
hind him. 

Nodding and mocking along the wall with gestures 
fantastic, 

Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into 
darkness. 

Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm- 
chair 

Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates 
on the dresser 205 

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies 
the sunshine. 

Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of 
Christmas, 

Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before 
him 

Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian 
vineyards. 

Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline 
seated, 2i« 



EVANGELINE. 25 

Spinning flax for the loom that stood in the corner 

behind her. 
Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent 

shuttle, 
While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the 

drone of a bagpipe, 
Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments 

together. 
As in a church, when the chant of the choir at inter- 
vals ceases, 215 
Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest 

at the altar. 
So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion 

the clock clicked. 

Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, 

suddenly lifted. 
Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back 

on its hinges. 
Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil 

the blacksmith, 220 

And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was 

with him. 
" Welcome ! " the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps 

paused on the threshold, 
" Welcome, Basil, my friend ! Come, take thy place 

on the settle 
Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty 

without thee ; 
Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of 

tobacco ; 225 

Never so much thyself art thou as when, through the 

curling 
Smoke of the pipe or the forge, thy friendly and jovial 

face gleams 



26 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist 

of the marshes." 
Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the 

blacksmith, 
Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fire= 

side : — 23e 

" Benedict Belief ontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and 

thy ballad ! 
Ever in cheerfuUest mood art thou, when others are 

filled with 
Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before 

them. 
Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up 

a horseshoe." F 
Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline 

brought him, 235 

And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he 

slowly continued : — 
" Four days now are passed since the English ships 

at their anchors 
Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon 

pointed against us. 
What their design may be is unknown ; but all are 

commanded 
On the morrow to meet in the church, where his 

Majesty's mandate 240 

Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas ! in the 

mean time 
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the peo- 
ple." 
Then made answer the farmer : — " Perhaps some 

friendlier purpose 

239. The text of Colonel Winslow's proclamation will be found 
in HalibiirtoUf i. ^75. 



EVANGELINE, 27 

Brings these ships to our shores, l^erhaps the har- 
vests in England 

By untimely rains or untimelier heat have been 
blighted, 245 

And from our bursting barns they would feed their 
cattle and children." 

" Not so thinketh the folk in the village," said warmly 
the blacksmith. 

Shaking his head as in doubt ; then, heaving a sigh, 
he continued : — 

" Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor 
Port Royal. 

Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its 
outskirts, 250 

Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to- 
morrow. 

Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons 
of all kinds ; 

Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the 
scythe of the mower." 

Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial 
farmer : — 

249. Louisburg, on Cape Breton, was built by the French as a 
military and naval station early in the eighteenth century, but 
was taken by an expedition from Massachusetts under General 
Pepperell in 1745. It was restored by England to France in the 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and recaptured by the English in 
1757. Beau Sejour was a French fort upon the neck of land 
connecting Acadia with the mainland which had just been cap- 
tured by Winslow's forces. Port Royal, afterwards called Anna- 
polis Royal, at the outlet of Annapolis River into the Bay of 
Fundy, had been disputed ground, being occupied alternately by 
French and English, but in 1710 was attacked by an expedition 
from New England, and after that held by the English govern- 
ment and made a fortified place. 



28 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks 

and our cornfields, 255 

Safer within these peaceful dikes besieged by the ocean, 
Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's 

cannon. 
Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow 

of sorrow 
Fall on this house and hearth ; for this is the night 

of the contract. 
Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of 

the village 26O 

Strongly have built them and well ; and, breaking the 

glebe round about them. 
Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for 

a twelvemonth. 
Rene Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and 

inkhorn. 
Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of 

our children ? " 
As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in 

her lover's, 26.'^ 

Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father 

had spoken, 
And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary en- 
tered. 

III. 

( Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of 
the ocean, 

267. A notary is an officer authorized to attest contracts or 
writings of any kind. His authority varies in different coun- 
tries ; in France he is the necessary maker of all contracts where 
the subject-matter exceeds 150 francs, and his instruments, 
which are preserved and registered by himself, are the origi- 
nals, the parties preserving only copies. 



EVANGELINE. 29 

Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the no^ 
tary public ; 

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the 
maize, hung 270 

Over his shoulders ; his forehead was high ; and 
glasses with horn bows 

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernaL 

Father of twenty children was he, and more than a 
hundred 

Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his 
great watch tick. 

Four long years in the times of the war had he lan- 
guished a captive, 275 

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of 
the English. 

Now, though warier grown, without all guile or sus- 
picion. 

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and 
childlike. 

He was beloved by all, and most of all by the chil- 
dren ; 

For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the for- 
est, 280 

275. King George's War, which broke out in 1744 in Cape 
Breton, in an attack by the French upon an English garrison, 
and closed with the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 ; or, the 
reference may possibly be to Queen Anne's war, 1702-1713; 
when the French aided the Indians in their warfare with the col- 
onists. 

280. The Loup-garou, or were-wolf, is, according to an old su- 
perstition especially prevalent in France, a man with power to 
turn himself into a wolf, which he does that he may devour chiL 
dren. In later times the superstition passed into the more iuna 
cent one of men having a power to charm wolves. 



30 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

And of the goblin that came in the night to water the 

horses, 
And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a chikl who 

unchristened 
Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers 

of children ; 
And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the 

stable, 
And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in 

a nutshell, 285 

And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover 

and horseshoes. 
With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village. 
Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the 

blacksmith, 
Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extend- 
ing his right hand, 
" Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, " thou hast heard 

the talk in the village, 290 

And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships 

and their errand." 
Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary 

public, — 
/" Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never 
\^ the wiser ; 

282. Pluquet relates this superstition, and conjectures that the 
white, fleet ermine gave rise to it. 

284. A belief still lingers among the peasantry of England, as 
well as on the Continent, that at midnight, on Christmas eve, the 
cattle in the stalls fall down on their knees in adoration of the 
infant Saviour, as the old legend says was done in the stable at 
Bethlehem. 

285. In like manner a popular superstition prevailed in Eng- 
land that ague could be cured by sealing a spider in a goose- 
quill and hanging it about the neck. 



EVANGELINE. 31 

And what their errand may be I know no better than 

others. 
Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil inten- 
tion 295 
Brings them here, for we are at peace ; and why then 

molest us ? " 
"God's name ! " shouted the hasty and somewhat iras- 
^- cible blacksmith ; 

'^ *' Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, 

and the wherefore ? 
Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the 

strongest ! 'J 
But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary 

public, — 300 

V^^an is unjust, but God is just) and finally justice 
Triumphs ; and well I remem^r a story, that often 

consoled me. 
When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at 

Port Royal." 
This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to 

repeat it 
When his neighbors complained that any injustice was 

done them. 305 

" Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer re- 
member. 
Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice 
Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its 

left hand. 
And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice 

presided 
Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes 

of the people. sio 

302. This is an old Florentine story ; in an altered form it is 
the theme of Kossiui's opera of La Gazza Ladra. 



32 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of 
the balance, 

Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sun- 
shine above them. 

But in the course of time the laws of the land were 
corrupted ; 

Might took the place of right, and the weak were 
oppressed, and the mighty 

Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a noble- 
man's palace 315 

That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a sus- 
picion 

Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the house- 
hold. 

She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaf- 
fold, 

Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of 
Justice. 

As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit as- 
cended, 320 

Lo ! o'er the city a tempest rose ; and the bolts of the 
thunder 

Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from 
its left hand 

Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of 
the balance, 
• And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a 
magpie, 

Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was 
inwoven." 325 

Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended^ 
the blacksmith 

Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findetb 
no language ; 



EVANGELINE, 33 

All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, 

as the vapors 
Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the 

winter. 

Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the 
table, 33G 

Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with 
home-brewed 

Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the 
village of Grand-Pre ; 

While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and 
inkhorn. 

Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the 
parties. 

Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and 
in cattle. 33s 

Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were 
completed, 

And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on 
the margin. 

Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the 
table 

Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of sil- 
ver; 

And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and 
bridegroom, 340 

Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their 
welfare. 

Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and 
departed. 

While in silence the others sat and mused by the fire- 
side. 



34 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its 
corner. 

Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention 
the old men 345 

Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuvre, 

Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was 
made in the king-row. 

Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's 
embrasure. 

Sat the lovers and whispered together, beholding the 
moon rise 

Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the mead- 
ows. 350 

Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven. 

Blossomed the lovel3( stars, the forget-me-nots of the 



Thus was the evening passed. Anon the bell from 

the belfry 
Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and 

straightway 
Rose the guests and departed ; and silence reigned in 

the household. 355 

344. The word draughts is derived from the circumstance of 
drawing the men from one square to another. 

354. Curfew is a corruption of couvre-feu, or cover fire. In 
the Middle Ages, when police patrol at night was almost un- 
known, it was attempted to lessen the chances of crime by mak- 
ing it an ofPence against the laws to be found in the streets in 
the night, and the curfew bell was tolled, at various hours, ac- 
cording to the custom of the place, from seven to nine o'clock in 
the evening. It warned honest people to lock their doors, cover 
their fires, and go to bed. The custom still lingers in many 
places, even in America, of ringing a bell at nine o'clock in the 
evening. 



EVANGELINE. 35 

Many a farewell word and sweet good-night on the 
door-step 

Lmgered long in Evangeline's heart, and filled it with 
gladness. 

Carefully then were covered the embers that glowed 
on the hearth-stone, 

And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the 
farmer. 

Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline fol- 
lowed. ^^^ 

Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the dark- 
ness. 

Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the 
maiden. 

Silent she passed through the hall, and entered the 
door of her chamber. 

Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, 
and its clothes-press 

Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were care- 
fully folded 365 

Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline 
woven. 

This was the precious dower she would bring to her 
husband in marriage. 

Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill 
as a housewife. 

Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and 
radiant moonlight 

Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, 

till the heart of the maiden 370 

Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides 

of the ocean. 
Ah! she was fail', exceeding fair to behold, as she 
stood with 



36 HENRY WADISWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

t 
Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her 

chamber ! 
Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the 

orchard, 
Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her 

lamp and her shadow. 375 

Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling 

of sadness 
Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in 

the moonlight 
Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a 

moment. 
And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely 

the moon pass 
Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow 

her footsteps, ' ssd 

As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered 

with Hagar. 

/'■■ ■■" 

Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village 

of Grand-Pre. 
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of 

Minas, 
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were 

riding at anchor. 
Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous 

labor 385 

Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates 

of the morning. 
Now from the country around, from the farms and 

neighboring hamlets, 
Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian 

peasants. 



EVANGELINE. 37 

Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the 
young folk 

Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numer- 
ous meadows, 390 

Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels 
in the greensward. 

Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on 
the highway. 

Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were 
silenced. 

Thronged were the streets with people; and noisy 
groups at the house-doors 

Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped to- 
gether. 395 

Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and 
feasted ; 

For with this simple people, who lived like brothers 
together. 

All things were held in common, and what one had 
was another's. 

Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more 

abundant : 

396. "Real misery was wholly unknown, and benevolence 
anticipated the demands of poverty. Every misfortune was re- 
lieved as it were before it could be felt, without ostentation on 
the one hand, and without meanness on the other. It was, in 
short, a society of brethren, every individual of which was 
equally ready to give and to receive what he thought the com- 
mon right of mankind." — From the Abb^ Raynal's account of 
the Acadians. The Abbd Guillaume Thomas Francis Raynal 
was a French writer (1711-1796), who published A Philosophi- 
cal History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the 
East and West Indies, in which he included also some account of 
Canada and Nova Scotia. His picture of life among the Aca- 
dians, somewhat highly colored, is the source from which after 
writers have drawn their knowledge of Acadian manners. 



38 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

For Evangeline stood among the guests of her 
father ; 400 

Bright was her face with smiles, and words of wel- 
come and gladness 

Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as 
she gave it. 

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the 
orchard, 

Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of be- 
trothal. 

There in the shade of the porch were the priest and 
the notary seated ; 405 

There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the black- 
smith. 

Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and 
the beehives, 

Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of 
hearts and of waistcoats. 

Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played 
on his snow-white 

Hair, as it waved in the wind ; and the jolly face of 
the fiddler 410 

Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown 
from the embers. 

Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his 
fiddle, 

Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres^ and Le Carillon de 
Dunkerque^ 

413. Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres was a song written by 
Ducauroi, maltre de chapelle of Henri IV., the words of which 
are : — 

Vous connaissez Cybele, You remember Cybele, 

Qui sut fixer le Temps ; Wise the seasons to unfold ; 

On la disait fort belle, Very fair, said men, was she, 

Mgme dans ses vieux ans. Even when her years grew old. 



EVANGELINE. 39 

And anon with bis wooden shoes beat time to the 

music. 
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying 

dances 415 

Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the 

meadows ; 
Old folk and young together, and children mingled 

among them. 
Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's 

daughter ! 
Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the 

blacksmith ! 

So passed the morning away. And lo ! with a sum- 
mons sonorous 420 

Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the mead- 
ows a drum beat. 

Thronged ere long was the church with men. With- 
out, in the churchyard, 

CHORUS. CHORUS. 

Gette divinity, quoique deja grand'mere A grandame, yet by goddess birth 

Avait les yeux doux, le teint frais, She kept sweet eyes, a color warm, 

Avait mgme certains attraita And held through everything a charm 

Fermes comme la Terre. Fast like the earth. 

Le Carillon de Dunkerque was a popular song to a tune played 
on the Dunkirk chimes. The words are : — 

Le Carillon de Dunkerque. The Carillon of Dunkirk. 

Imprudent, t^m^raire Reckless and rash, 

A I'instant, je I'espere Take heed for the flash 

Dans mon juste courroux, Of mine anger, "tis just 

Tu vas tomber sous mes coups ! To lay thee with its blows in the dust. 

— Je brave ta menace. — Your threat I defy. 

— Etre moi ! quelle audace ! — What ! You would be I ! 
Avance done, poltron ! Come, coward ! I '11 show — 
Tu trembles ? non, non, non. You tremble ? No, no ! 

— J'^touffe de colere ! — I 'm choking with rage ! 

— Je rifl de ta colore. . — A fig for your rage ! 

The music to which the old man sang these songs will be found 
in La Cle du Caveau, by Pierre Capelle, Nos. 564 and 739, 
Paris : A. Cotelle. 



40 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Waited the women. Tliey stood by the graves, and 

hung on the headstones 
Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from 

the forest. 
Then came the guard from the ships, and marching 

proudly among them 425 

Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant 

clangor 
Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling 

and casement, — 
Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous por- 
tal 
Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of 

the soldiers. 
Then uprose their commander, and sjDake from the 

steps of the altar, 430 

Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal 

commission. 
" You are convened this day," he said, " by his Maj- 
esty's orders. 
Clement and kind has he been ; but how you have 

answered his kindness 
Let your own hearts replj^ 1 To my natural make and 

my temper 
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must 

be grievous. 43e 

Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our 

monarch : 
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle 

of all kinds 
Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you yourselves 

from this province 

432. Colonel Winslow has preserved in his Diary the speech 
n^hich he delivered to the assembled Acadians, and it is copied 
by Haliburton in his History of Nova Scotia, i. 166, 167. 



EVANGELINE. 41 

Be transported to other lands. God grant you may 

dwell there 
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable peo- 
ple ! ^« 
Prisoners now I declare you, for such is his Majesty's 

pleasure ! " 
As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of 

summer. 
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the 

hailstones 
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field, and shatters 

his windows. 
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch 

from the house-roofs, ^ 

Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their en- 
closures ; 
So on the hearts of the people descended the words of 

the speaker. 
Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and 

then rose 
Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger. 
And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the 

door-way. ^^^ 

Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce 

imprecations 
Rang through the house of prayer ; and high o'er the 

heads of the others 
Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the 

blacksmith, 
As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. 
Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and 
wildly he shouted, — ^ 

^ Down with the tyrants of England ! we never have 
sworn them allegiance ! 



42 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on oui 

homes and our harvests ! " 
More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand 

of a soldier 
Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to 

the pavement. 

In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry con- 
tention, 460 
Lo! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Feli- 

cian 
Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of 

the altar. 
Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed 

into silence 
All that clamorous throng ; and thus he spake to his 

people ; 
Deep were his tones and solemn ; in accents measured 

and mournful 465 

Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the 

clock strikes. 
" What is this that ye do, my children ? what madness 

has seized you ? 
Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and 

taught you. 
Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another ! 
Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers 

and privations ? 470 

Have 3^ou so soon forgotten all lessons of love and 

forgiveness ? 
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would 

you profane it 
Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with 

hatred ? 



EVANGELINE. 43 

Lo! where the crucified Christ from His cross is gaz- 
ing upon you ! 

See ! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy 
coQipassion ! '*^^ 

Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, 'O 
Father, forgive them ! ' 

Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked 
assail us. 

Let us repeat it now, and say, ' O Father, forgive 
them!'" 

Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hoarts 
of his people 

Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the pas- 
sionate outbreak, ^^ 

While they repeated his prayer, and said, " O Father, 
forgive them ! " 

Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed 

from the altar ; 
Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the 

people responded, 
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts ; and the 

Ave Maria 
Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, 

with devotion translated, ^85 

Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to 

heaven. 

Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of 

ill, and on all sides 
Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women 

and children. 
Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with hei 

rieht hand 



44 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, 
that, descending, m 

Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, 
and roofed each 

Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned 
its windows. 

Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on 
the table ; 

There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant 
with wild flowers ; 

There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh 
brought from the dairy ; 495 

And at the head of the board the great arm-chair of 
the farmer. 

Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the 
sunset 

Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad am- 
brosial meadows. 

Ah ! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen, 

And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial 
ascended, — 5011 

Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, 
and patience ! 

Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the vil- 
lage. 

Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of 
the women. 

As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they 
departed. 

Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of 
their children. sos 

492. To emblazon is literally to adorn anything with ensigns 
armorial. It was often the custom to work these ensigns into 
the design of painted windowSc 



EVANGELINE. 45 

Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmer- 
ing vapors 

Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descend- 
ing from Sinai. 

Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus 
sounded. 

Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evange- 
line lingered. 
All was silent within ; and in vain at the door and the 

windows 510 

Stood she, and listened and looked, until, overcome by 

emotion, 
" Gabriel ! " cried she aloud with tremulous voice ; 

but no answer 
Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier 

grave of the living. 
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house 

of her father. 
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was 

the supper untasted. 515 

Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with 

phantoms of terror. 
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her 

chamber. 
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate 

rain fall 
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by 

the window. 
Keenly the lightning flashed ; and the voice of the 

echoing thunder 520 

Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the 

world He created) 



46 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the 

justice of Heaven ; 
Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully 

slumbered till morning. J 

V. 

Four times the sun had risen and set ; and now on 
the fifth day 

Cheerily called the cock to the sleej)ing maids of the 
farm-house. 525 

Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful pro- 
cession. 

Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the 
Acadian women, 

Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to 
the sea-shore. 

Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their 
dwellings. 

Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and 
the woodland. 539 

Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on 
the oxen, 

While in their little hands they clasped some frag- 
ments of playthings. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried ; and 

there on the sea-beach 
piled in confusion lay the household goods of the 

peasants. 
All day long between the shore and the ships did the 

boats ply ; 535 

All day long the wains came laboring down from the 

village. 
Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his 

setting, 



EVANGELINE. 47 

Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from 
the churchyard. 

Thither the women and children thronged. On a sud- 
den the church-doors 

Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in 
gloomy procession 540 

Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian 
farmers. 

Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes 
and their country, 

Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary 
and wayworn, 

So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants de- 
scended 

Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives 
and their daughters. 545 

Foremost the young men came ; and, raising together 
their voices. 

Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic 
Missions : — 

" Sacred heart of the Saviour ! O inexhaustible foun- 
tain ! 

Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission 
and patience ! " 

Then the old men, as they marched, and the women 
that stood by the wayside 550 

Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sun- 
shine above them 

Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits 
departed. 

Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in 
silence. 
Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of 
affliction, — 



48 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Calmly and sadly she waited, Tintil the procession ap 
proached her, 555 

And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion. 

Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to 
meet him. 

Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his 
shoulder, and whispered, — 

'' Gabriel ! be of good cheer ! for if we love one 
•another 

Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances 
may happQn ! " seo 

Smiling she spake these words ; then suddenly paused, 
for her father 

Saw she, slowly advancing. Alas ! how changed v/as 
his aspect ! 

Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from 
his eye, and his footstep 

Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart 
in his bosom. 

But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and 
embraced him, 565 

Speaking words of endearment where words of com- 
fort availed not. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mourn- 
ful procession. 

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of 

embarking. 
Busily plied the freighted boats ; and in the confusion 
Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, 

too late, saw their children 57« 

Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest 

entreaties. 
So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried, 



EVANGELINE, 49 

While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with 

her father. 
Half the task was not done when the sun went down, 

and the twilight 
Deepened and darkened around ; and in haste the 

refluent ocean 575 

Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the 

sand-beach 
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slip- 
pery sea-weed. 
Farther back in the midst of the household goods and 

the wagons, 
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle, 
All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near 

them, 580 

Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian 

farmers. 
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing 

ocean, 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and 

leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the 

sailors. 
Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from 

their pastures ; sss 

Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk 

from their udders ; 
Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars 

of the farm-yard, — 
Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand 

of the milkmaid. 
Silence reigned in the streets ; from the church no 

Angelus sounded. 
Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights 

from the windows. 590 



50 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But on the sliores meanwhile the evening fires had 

been kindled, 
Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from 

wrecks in the tempest. 
Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were 

gathered, 
Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the 

crying of children. 
Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in 

his parish, 595 

Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing 

and cheering, 
Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate sea- 
shore. 
Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat 

with her father, 
And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old 

man. 
Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either 

thought or emotion, 600 

E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have 

been taken. 
Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to 

cheer him. 
Vainly offered him food ; yet he moved not, he looked 

not, he spake not. 
But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering 

fire-light. 
" Benedicite ! " murmured the priest, in tones of com- 
passion. • 605 
More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, 

and his accents 
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child 

on a threshold, 



EVANGELINE. 51 

Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful pres 

ence of sorrow. 
Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the 

maiden, 
Kaising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above 

them 610 

Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and 

sorrows of mortals. 
Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together 

in silence. 

Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn 

the blood-red 
Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the 

horizon 
Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain 

and meadow, . eis 

Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge 

shadows together. 
Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of 

the village. 
Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that 

lay in the roadstead. 
Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of 

flame were 
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the 

quivering hands of a martyr. 620 

615. The Titans were giant deities in Greek mythology who 
attempted to deprive Saturn of tlie sovereignty of heaven, and 
were driven down into Tartarus by Jupiter, the son of Saturn, 
who hurled thunderbolts at them. Briareus, the hundred- handed 
giant, was in mythology of the same parentage as the Titans, 
but was not classed with them. 



52 HENRY WADJSV/OKTH LONGFELLOW, 

Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning 
thatch, and, uplifting. 

Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a 
hundred house-tops 

Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame inter- 
mingled. 

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the 
shore and on shipboard. 

Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their 
anguish, 625 

" We shall behold no more our homes in the village of 
Grand-Pre ! " 

Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm- 
yards. 

Thinking the day had dawned ; and anon the lowing 
of cattle , 

Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs 
interrupted. 

Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleep- 
ing encampments eao 

Far in the western prairies of forests that skirt the 
Nebraska, 

When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the 
speed of the whirlwind, 

621. Gleeds. Hot, burning coals ; a Chaucerian word : — 

" And wafres piping hoot out of the gleede," 

Canterbury Tales, 1. 3379. 

The burning of the houses was in accordance with the instruc- 
tions of the Governor to Colonel Winslow, in case he should fail 
in collecting all the inhabitants : " You must proceed by the most 
vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to em- 
bark, but in depriving those who shall escape of all means of 
shelter or support, by burning their houses and by destroying 
everything that may afford them the means of subsistence in the 
country." 



EVANGELINE. 53 

Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the 
river. 

Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the 
herds and the horses 

Broke through their folds and fences, and madly- 
rushed o'er the meadows. 635 

Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the 
priest and the maiden 

Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and 
widened before them ; 

And as they turned at length to speak to their silent 
companion, 

Lo ! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad 
on the seashore 

Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had de- 
parted. ^ 

Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the 
maiden 

Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her 
terror. 

Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on 
his bosom. 

Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious 
slumber ; 

And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a 
multitude near her. ^^ 

Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gaz- 
ing upon her. 

Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest com- 
passion. 
Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the 
landscape, 



54 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces 

around her, 
And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering 

senses. eso 

Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the peo= 

pie,-— 
" Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier 

season 
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land 

of our exile. 
Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the 

churchyard." 
Such were the words of the priest. And there in 

haste by the sea-side, 655 

Having the glare of the burning village for funeral 

torches. 
But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of 

Grand-Pre. 
And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of 

sorrow, 
Lo ! with a mournful sound like the voice of a vast 

congregation, 
Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with 

the dirges. eeo 

'T was the returning tide, that afar from the waste of 

the ocean. 
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hur- 
rying landward. 
Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of 

embarking ; 

657. The bell was tolled to mark the passage of the soul into 
the other world ; the book was the service book. The phrase 
" bell, book, or caudle " was used in referring to excommunica- 
tion. 



EVANGELINE. 55 

And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of 

the harbor, 
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the 

village in ruins. 665 



PART THE SECOND. 

I. 

Many a weary year had passed since the burning of 

Grand-Pre, 
When on the falling tide the freighted vessels de- 
parted, 
Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into 

exile. 
Exile without an end, and without an example in 

story. 
Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians 

landed ; 670 

Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, wlien the 

wind from the northeast 
Strikes aslant through the fogs th^t darken the Banks 

of Newfoundland. 
Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from 

city to city, 
From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern 

savannas, — 
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where 

the Father of Waters 675 

Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to 

the ocean, 
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the 

mammoth. 
677. Bones of the mastodon, or mammoth, have been found 



56 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Friends they sought and homes ; and many, despairing, 

heart-broken, 
Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend 

nor a fireside. 
Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the 

churchyards. eso 

Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and 

wandered. 
Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all 

things. 
Fair was she and young ; but, alas ! before her ex- 
tended, 
Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its 

pathway 
Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and 

suffered before her, 685 

Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and 

abandoned. 
As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is 

marked by 
Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in 

the sunshij^e. 
Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, 

unfinished ; 
As if a morning of June, with all its music and sun- 
shine, 690 
Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly de= 

scended 
Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. 
Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the 

fever within her, 

scattered all over the territory of the United States and Canada, 
but the greatest number have been collected in the Salt Licks of 
Kentucky, and in the States of Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, and 
Alabama. 



EVANGELINE. 6T 

Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of 
the spirit, 

She would commence again her endless search and en- 
deavor ; - 695 

Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the 
crosses and tombstones, 

Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps 
in its bosom 

He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber be- 
side him . ... , ^^^ '<A-^j.-<^ ^ c^ 

Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whis- 
per, 

Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her for- 
ward. 700 

Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her be- 
loved and known him. 

But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgot- 
ten. 

" Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " they said ; " Oh, yes ! we have 
seen him. 

He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone 
to the prairies ; 

Coureurs-des-bois are they, and famous hunters and 
trappers." 705 

699. Observe the diminution in this line, by which one is led 
to the airy hand in the next. 

705. The coureurs-des-bois formed a class of men, very early in 
Canadian history, produced by the exigencies of the fur-trade. 
They were French by birth, but by long affiliation with the In- 
dians and adoption of their customs had become half-civilized 
vagrants, whose chief vocation was conducting the canoes of the 
traders along the lakes and rivers of the interior. Bushrangers 
is the English equivalent. They played an important part in the 
Indian wars, but were nearly as lawless as the Indians them- 
selves. The reader will find them frequently referred to in 



68 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Gabriel Lajeimesse ! " said others ; '' Oh, yes ! we 

have seen him. 
He is a voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana." 
Then would they say, " Dear child ! why dream and 

wait for him longer ? 
Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel ? others 
Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as 

loyal ? 710 

Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has 

loved thee 
Many a tedious year ; come, give him thy hand and be 

happy ! 
Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's 

tresses." 
Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, 

" I cannot ! 
Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, 

and not elsewhere. 715 

For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and 

illumines the pathway. 
Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in 

darkness." 
Thereupon the priest, her friend and father confessor, 
Said, with a smile, " O daughter ! thy God thiis 
/- sj)eaketh within thee ! 

( Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was 
^ wasted ; 72» 

Parkman's histories, especially in The Conspiracy of Pontiac, 
The Discovery of the Great West, and Frontenac and New France 
under Louis XIV. 

IQl. A voyageur is a river boatman, and is a term applied 
usually to Canadians. 

713. St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Catherine of Siena 
were both celebrated for their vows of virginity. Hence the say- 
ing to braid St. Catherine's tresses, of one devoted to a single life. 



( 



EVANGELINE. 59 

If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, re- 
turning 

Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full 
of refreshment J 

That which the founmin sends forth returns again to 
the fountain. 

Patience ; accomplish thy labor ; accomplish thy work 
of affection ! 

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance 
is godlike.^ 725 

Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart 
is made godlike. 

Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more 
worthy of heaven ! " 

Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored 
and waited. 

Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the 
ocean. 

But with its sound there was mingled a voice that 
whispered, " Despair not ! " 730 

Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheer- 
less discomfort. 

Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of 
existence. 

Let me essay, O Muse ! to follow the wanderer's foot- 
steps ; — 

Not through each dexious path, each changeful year 
of existence ; 

But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through 
the valley : 735 

Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of 
its water 

Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals 
only ; 



60 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvaja, glooms 

that conceal it, 
Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous 

murmur ; 
Happy, at length, if he find a spot where it reaches 

an outlet. 740 

n. 

It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful 
River, 

Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wa- 
bash, 

Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mis- 
sissippi, 

Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian 
boatmen. 

It was a band of exiles : a raft, as it were, from the 
shi23wrecked 745 

Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating tov 
gether. 

Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a com- 
mon misfortune ; 

Men and women and children, who, guided by hope 
or by hearsay. 

Sought for their kith and their kin among the few- 
acred farmers 

On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Ope= 

loUSaS. 75(1 

741. The Iroquois gave to this river the name of Ohio, or the 
Beautiful River, and La Salle, who was the first European to 
discover it, preserved the name, so that it was transferred to 
maps very early. 

750. Between the 1st of January and the 13th of May, 1765, 
about six hundred and fifty Acadians had arrived at New Or- 



EVANGELINE, 61 

With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the 
Father Felician. 

Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness 
sombre with forests. 

Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river \ 

Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on 
its borders. 

Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, 
where plumelike 755 

Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept 
with the current. 

Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand- 
bars 

Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of 
their margin. 

Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pel- 
icans waded. 

Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the 
river, 76o 

Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gar- 
dens. 

Stood the houses of planters, with negro cabins and 
dove-cots. 

They were approaching the region where reigns per- 
petual summer, 

leans. Louisiana had been ceded by France to Spain in 1762j 
but did not really pass under the control of the Spanish until 
1769. The existence of a French population attracted the wan- 
dering Acadians, and they were sent by the authorities to form 
settlements in Attakapas and Opelousas. They afterward formed 
settlements on both sides of the Mississippi from the German 
Coast up to Baton Rouge, and even as high as Pointe Coupde. 
Hence the name of Acadian Coast, which a portion of the banks 
of the river still bears. See Gayarr^'s History of Louisiana : 
The French Dominion, vol. ii. 



62 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of 
orange and citron, 

Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the east- 
ward. 765 

They, too, swerved from their course ; and, entering 
the Bayou of Plaquemine, 

Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious 
waters. 

Which, like a network of steel, extended in every 
direction. 

Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs 
of the cypress 

Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid- 
air 770 

Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient 
cathedrals. 

Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by 
theJierons ^u^A,^^ 

Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at 
sunset. 

Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac ' 
laughter. 

Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed 
on the water, 775 

Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustain- 
ing the arches, 

Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through 
chinks in a ruin. 

Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things 
around them ; 

And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder 
and sadness, — 

Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be 
compassed. 7M 



EVANGELINE. 63 

As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the 

prairies, 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking 

mimosa, 
So, at the hoof -beats of fate, with sad forebodings of 

evil, 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom 

has attained it. 
But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that 

faintly 785 

Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through 

the moonlight. 
It was the thought of her brain that assumed the 

shape of a phantom. 
Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered 

before her. 
And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer 

and nearer. 

Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one 

of the oarsmen, V90 

And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradven- 

ture 
Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a 

blast on his bugle. 
Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy 

the blast rang. 
Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the 

forest. 
Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred 

to the music. '95 

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance. 
Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberj 

branches ; 



64 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But not a voice replied ; no answer came from the 

darkness ; 
And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain 

was the silence. 
Then Evangeline slept ; but the boatmen rowed 

through the midnight, soc 

Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat- 
songs. 
Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers. 
While through the night were heard the mysterious 

sounds of the desert, 
Far off, — indistinct, — as of wave or wind in the 

forest. 
Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of 

the grim alligator. sos 

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the 
shades ; and before them 

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya. 

Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undula- 
tions 

Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, 
the lotus 

Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boat- 
men. 810 

Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magno- 
lia blossoms. 

And with the heat of noon ; and numberless sylvan 
islands, 

Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming 
hedges of roses. 

Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to 
slumber. 

Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were sus- 
pended. 81ft 



EVANGELINE. 66 

Under the boughs of Wachita wiUows, that grew by 

the margin, 
Safely their boat was moored ; and scattered about on 

the greensward, 
Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers 

slumbered. 
Over them vast and high extended the cope of a 

cedar. 
Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and 

the grapevine ^^] 

Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder ot 

Jacob, J. 1 

On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, cle- 

scendiu*''. 

Were the swift" humming-birds, that flitted from blos- 
som to blossom. 

Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered 
beneath it. 

Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an 
opening heaven 

Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions 
celestial. 

Nearer, ever nearer, among the numberless islands. 
Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the 

Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters 

and trappers. i j r xi 

Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the 

11 830 

bison and beaver. 
At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful 

and careworn. ^ 

Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and 

a sadness 



66 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Somewhat beyond liis years on his face was legibly 

written. 
Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and 

restless, 
Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of 

sorrow. 835 

Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the 

island. 
But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of pal- 
mettos ; 
So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed 

in the willows ; 
All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, 

were the sleepers ; 
Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumber- 
ing maiden. 84o 
Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on 

the prairie. 
After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died 

in the distance. 
As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the 

maiden 
Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, "O Father 

Felician ! 
Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel 

wanders. sis 

Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition ? 
Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my 

spirit?" ^ M'^' 

Then, with a blush, she added, "Alas for my crgil«i^ 

lous fancy ! 
Unto ears like thine such words as these have no 

meaning." 
But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as 

he answered, — 85i 



A? 



EVANGELINE. 67 

" Daughter, thy words are not idle ; nor are they to 

me without meaning, 
Feeling is deep and still ; and the word that floats on 

the surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor 

is hidden. 
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world 

calls illusions. 
Gabriel truly is near thee ; for not far away to the 

southward, ess 

On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur 

and St. Martin. 
There the long-wandering bride shall be given again 

to her bridegroom. 
There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his . 

sheepfold. 
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of 

fruit-trees ; 
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of 

heavens seo 

Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of 

the forest. 
They who dwell there have named it the Eden of 

Louisiana." 

With these words of cheer they arose and continued 
their journey. 

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western 
horizon 

Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the 
landscape ; 865 

Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water and forest 

Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and min- 
gled together. 



68 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of 
silver, 

Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the mo- 
tionless water. 

Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweet- 
ness. 870 

Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of 
feeling 

Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters 
around her. 

Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, 
wildest of singers. 

Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the 
water. 

Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious 

music, 875 

That the whole air and the woods and the waves 

seemed silent to listen. 
Plaintive at first were the tones and sad ; then soaring 

to madness 
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied 

Bacchantes. 
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lam- 
entation ; 
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad 

in derision, m 

As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the 

tree-tops 
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on 

the branches. 

878. The Bacchantes were worshippers of the god Bacchus, 
who in Greek mythology presided over the vine and its fruits. 
They gave themselves up to all manner of excess, and theii 
songs and dances were to wild, intoxicating measures. 



EVANGELINE. 69 

With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed 

with emotion, 
Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through 

the green Opelousas, 
And, through the amber air, above the crest of the 

woodland, 885 

^Saw the column of smoke that iirose from a neighbor^ 

ing dwelling ; — 
Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing 

of cattle. 

III. / 

Near to the bank of the river, o'ershadowed by oaks 
from whose branches 

Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe 
flaunted. 

Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at 
Yule-tide, 89o 

Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. 
A garden 

Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blos- 
soms, 

Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was 
of timbers 

Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted to- 
gether. 

Large and low was the roof ; and on slender columns 
supported, 895 

Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious 
veranda, 

Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended 
around it. 

At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the 
garden. 



70 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual sym- 
bol, 

Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of 
rivals. 900 

Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow 
and sunshine 

Ran near the tops of the trees ; but the house itself 
was in shadow, 

And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly ex- 
panding 

Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke 
rose. 

In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a 
pathway 905 

Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the 
limitless prairie. 

Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descend- 
ing- 
Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy 

canvas 
Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm 

in the tropics. 
Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of 

grapevines. 9W 

Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of 

the prairie. 
Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and 

stirrups, 
Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of 

deerskin. 
Broad and brown was the face that from under the 

Spanish sombrero 
Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of 

its master. sis 



EVANGELINE. 71 

Round about him were numberless herds of kine that 

were grazing 
Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory 

freshness 
That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the 

landscape. 
Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and ex^ 

panding 
Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that re^ 
sounded ^^^* 

Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air 

of the evening. 
Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the 

cattle 
Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of 

ocean. 
Silent a moment they gazed, then bellowing rushed 

o'er the prairie. 
And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the 
distance. ^^^ 

Then, as the herdsman turned to the house, through 

the gate of the garden 
Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden ad- 
vancing to meet him. 
Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amaze- 
ment, and forward 
Pushed with extended arms and exclamations of won- 

der ; 
When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the 
blacksmith. ^"^ 

Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the 

garden. 
There in an arbor of roses with endless question and 
answer 



72 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their 

friendly embraces, 
Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and 

thoughtful. 
Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not; and now dark 

doubts and misgivings 935 

Stole o'er the maiden's heart ; and Basil, somewhat 

embarrassed. 
Broke the silence and said, "If you came by the 

Atchafalaya, 
How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel's 

boat on the bayous ? " 
Over Evangeline's face at the words of Basil a shade 

passed. 
Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a trem- 
ulous accent, 940 
" Gone ? is Gabriel gone ? " and, concealing her face 

on his shoulder, 
AH her o'erburdened heart gave way, and she wept 

and lamented. 
Then the good Basil said, — and his voice grew blithe 

as he said it, — 
" Be of good cheer, my child ; it is only to-day he 

departed. 
Foolish boy ! he has left me alone with my herds and 

my horses. 945 

Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his 

spirit 
Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet exis= 

tence. 
Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever, 
Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles, 
He at length had become so tedious to men and to 

maidens, 950 



EVANGELINE. 73 

Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, and 

sent him 
Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the 

Spaniards. 
Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark 

Mountains, 
Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the 

beaver. 
Therefore be of good cheer ; we will follow the fugi- 
tive lover ; ^^^ 
He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the 

streams are against him. 
Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of 

the morning, 
We will follow him fast, and bring him back to his 

prison." 

Then glad voices were heard, and up from the 

banks of the river. 
Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came Michael the 

fiddler. 
Long under Basil's roof had he lived, like a god on 

Olympus, 
Having no other care than dispensing music to mor^ 

Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his 

fiddle. , ,. 

■' Long live Michael," they cried, " our brave Acadian 

niinsti-el ! " . , 

As they bove him aloft in triumphal procession; and 

straightway 
Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greetmg 

the old man 
Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil, 
enraptured. 



74 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gos- 
sips, 

Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and 
daughters. 

Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant 
blacksmith, 97c 

All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchal 
demeanor ; 

Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and 
the climate, 

And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his 
who would take them ; 

Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, w^ould go 
and do likewise. 

Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the breezy 
veranda, 975 

Entered the hall of the house, where already the sup- 
per of Basil 

Waited his late return ; and they rested and feasted 
together. 

Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness de- 
scended. 
All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape 

with silver, 
Eair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars ; but 

within doors, 980 

Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the 

glimmering lamplight. 
Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, 

the herdsman 
Poured forth his heart and his wine together in endless 

profusion. 
Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchv 

toehes tobacco ^ 



EVANGELINE. 75 

Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled 

as they listened : — 985 

" Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been 

friendless and homeless, 
Welcome once more to a home, that is better per- 
chance than the old one ! 
Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the 

rivers ; 
Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the 

farmer ; 
Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a 

keel through the water. 990 

All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom ; 

and grass grows 
More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer. 
Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed 

in the prairies ; 
Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and 

forests of timber 
With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed 

into houses. 995 

After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow 

with harvests, 
No King George of England shall drive you away from 

your homesteads. 
Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your 

farms and your cattle." 
Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from 

his nostrils. 
While his huge, brown hand came thundering down 

on the table, 1000 

So that the guests all started ; and Father Felician, 

astounded. 
Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to 

his nostrils. 



76 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were 
milder and gayer : — 

" Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the 
fever ! 

For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate, loos 

Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a 
nutshell ! " 

Then there were voices heard at the door, and foot- 
steps approaching 

Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy 
veranda. 

It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian 
planters, 

Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the 
herdsman. loio 

Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and 
neighbors : 

Friend clasped friend in his arms; and they who 
before were as strangers. 

Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each 
other. 

Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country 
together. 

But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, pro- 
ceeding ii'is 

From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious 
fiddle. 

Broke up all further speech. Away, like children 
delighted. 

All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to 
the maddening 

Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to 
the music. 

Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of flutter- 
ing garments. 1020 



EVANGELINE. 11 

Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest 

and the herdsman 
Sat, conversing together of past and present and 

future ; 
While Evangeline stood iike one entranced, for within 

her 
Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the 

music 
Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepres- 
sible sadness 1025 
Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into 

the garden. 
Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of 

the forest. 
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On 

the river 
Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous 

gleam of the moonlight, 
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and 

devious spirit. i03i 

Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers 

of the garden 
Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers 

and confessions 
Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent 

Carthusian. 

1033. The Carthusians are a monastic order founded in the 
twelfth century, perhaps the most severe in its rules of all reli- 
gious societies. Almost perpetual silence is one of the vows; the 
monks can talk together but once a week ; the labor required of 
them is unremitting and the discipline exceedingly rigid. The 
first monastery was established at Cliartreux near Grenoble in 
France, and the Latinized form of the name has given us the 
word Carthusian. 



78 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with 
shadows and night-dews, 

Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the 
magical moonlight 1035 

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable long- 
ings, 

As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade 
of the oak-trees. 

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measure- 
less prairie. 

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies 

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite 
numbers. io40 

Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the 
heavens. 

Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel 
and worship. 

Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of 
that temple, 

As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, 
" Upharsin." 

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and 
the fire-flies, 1045 

Wandered alone, and she cried, " O Gabriel ! O my 
beloved ! 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold 
thee? 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not 
reach me ? 

Ah ! how often thy feet have trod this path to the 
prairie ! 

Ah ! how often thine eyes have looked on the wood- 
lands around me ! 105c 

Ah ! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor, 



EVANGELINE. 79 

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in 

thy shimbers ! 
When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded 

about thee ? " 
Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoor- 

will sounded 
Like a flute in the woods ; and anon, through the 

neighboring thickets, 1055 

Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into 

silence. 
" Patience ! " whispered the oaks from oracular cav- 
erns of darkness ; 
And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, 

" To-morrow ! " 

Bright rose the sun next day ; and all the flowers 
of the garden 

Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed 
his tresses loeo 

With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases 
of crystal. 

'^Farewell!" said the priest, as he stood at the 
shadowy threshold ; 

*^See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his 
fasting and famine, 

A.nd, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the 
bridegroom was coming." 

^'Farewell! " answered the maiden, and, smiling, with 
Basil descended loes 

Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already 
were waiting. 

Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sun- 
shine, and gladness, 

Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speed- 
ing before them, 



80 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the 

desert. 
Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that suc- 
ceeded, 1070 
Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or 

river. 
Nor, after many days, had they found him ; but vague 

and uncertain 
Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and 

desolate country ; 
Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes, 
Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the 

garrulous landlord 1075 

That on the day before, with horses and guides and 

companions, 
Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the 

prairies. 

IV. 

Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the 

mountains 
Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and lumi- 
nous summits. 
Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the 

gorge, like a gateway, loso 

Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's 

wagon, 
Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway an<^ 

Owyhee. 
Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river 

Mountains, 
Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the 

Nebraska ; 
And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the 

Spanish sierras, 108I 



EVANGELINE. 81 

Fretted with sands and rocks, and. swept by the wind 

of the desert, 
Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to 

the ocean. 
Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn 
vibrations. 

Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, 
beautiful prairies, 

Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sun- 
shine, 1090 

Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple 
am or ph as. 

Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk 
and the roebuck ; 

Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of rider- 
less horses ; 

Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary 
with travel ; 

Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's 
children, i093 

Staining the desert with blood ; and above their terri- 
ble war-trails 

Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vul- 
ture. 

Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered 
in battle, 

By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heav- 
ens. 

Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these 
savage marauders ; noo 

Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift- 
rimning rivers; 

And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of 
the desertj 



82 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by 

the brook-side, 
And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline 

heaven. 
Like the protecting hand of God inverted above 

them. no5 

Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark 

Mountains, 
Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers 

behind him. 
Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden 

and Basil 
Followed his flying steps, and thought each day to 

o'ertake him. 
Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke 

of his camp-fire mo 

Eise in the morning air from the distant plain ; but 

at nightfall. 
When they had reached the place, they found only 

embers and ashes. 
And, though their hearts were sad at times and their 

bodies were weary, 
Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana 
Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and 

vanished before them. ni5 

1114. The Italian name for a meteoric phenomenon nearly- 
allied to a mirage, witnessed in the Straits of Messina, and less 
frequently elsewhere, and consisting in the appearance in the 
air over the sea of the objects which are upon the neighboring 
coasts. In the southwest of our own country, the mirage is very 
common, of lakes which stretch before the tired traveller, and 
the deception is so great that parties have sometimes beckoned 
to other travellers, who seemed to be wading knee-deep, to come 
over to them w^here dry land was. 



EVANGELINE, 83 

Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently 

entered 
Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features 
Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as 

her sorrow. 
She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her 

people, 
From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Ca= 

manches, 1120 

Where her Canadian husband, a coureur-des-bois, 

had been murdered. 
Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest 

and friendliest welcome 
Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and 

feasted among them 
On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the 

' embers. 
But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his 

companions, 1125 

Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the 

deer and the bison. 
Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where 

the quivering fire-light 
Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms 

wrapped up in their blankets. 
Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and re= 

peated 
Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her In- 
dian accent, 1130 
All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, 

and reverses. 
Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that 

another 
Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been 

disappointed. 



84 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's 

compassion, 
Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered 

was near her, uss 

She in turn related her love and all its disasters. 
Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had 

ended 
Still was mute ; but at length, as if a mysterious hor 

ror 
Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the 

tale of the Mowis ; 
Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded 

a maiden, ii40 

But, when the morning came, arose and passed from 

the wigwam. 
Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sun- 
shine. 
Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far 

into the forest. 
Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a 

weird incantation. 
Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed 

by a phantom, ii45 

That, through the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the 

hush of the twilight. 
Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love to 

the maiden, 
Till she followed his green and waving plume through 

the forest. 
And nevermore returned, nor was seen again by hei 

people. 

1145. The story of Lilinau and other Indian legends will be 
found in H. R. Schoolcraft's Algic Researches. 



EVANGELINE. 85 

Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline 
listened uso 

To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region 
around her 

Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest 
the enchantress. 

Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the 
moon rose, 

Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splen- 
dor 

Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling 
the woodland. n5-> 

With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the 
branches 

Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whis- 
pers. 

Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's 
heart, but a secret. 

Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror, 

As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of 
the swallow. neo 

It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of 
spirits 

Seemed to float in the air of night ; and she felt for a 
moment 

That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a 
pharftom. 

With this thought she slept, and the fear and the 
phantom had vanished. 

Early upon the morrow the march was resumed, and 
the Shawnee ii«^ 

Said, as they journeyed along, — " On the western 
slope of these mountains 



86 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of 

the Mission. 
Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary 

and Jesus ; 
Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, 

as they hear him." 
Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline 

answered, ino 

" Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings 

await us ! " 
Thither they turned their steeds ; and behind a spur 

of the mountains. 
Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of 

voices, 
And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a 

river. 
Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit 

Mission. n75 

Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the 

village. 
Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A 

crucifix fastened 
High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by 

grapevines. 
Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneel- 
ing beneath it. 
This was their rural chapel. Aloft, throiigh the intri- 
cate arches use 
Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers. 
Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of 

the branches. 
Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer 

approaching. 
Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening 

devotions. 



EVANGELINE. 87 

But when the service was done, and the benediction 
had fallen nss 

Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the 
hands of the sower, 

Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers, 
and bade them 

Welcome ; and when they replied, he smiled with be- 
nignant expression. 

Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in 
the forest. 

And, with words of kindness, conducted them into his 
wigwam. neo 

There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes 
of the maize-ear 

Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd 
of the teacher. 

Soon was their story told ; and the priest with solem- 
nity answered : — 

" Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated 

On this mat by my side, where now the maiden re- 
poses, 1195 

Told me this same sad tale ; then arose and continued 
his journey ! " 

Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an 
accent of kindness ; 

But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter 
the snow-flakes 

Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have 
departed. 

" Far to the north he has gone," continued the priest ; 
" but in autumn, 1200 

When the chase is done, will return again to the Mis- 
sion." 

Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and 
submissive. 



88 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

" Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and af- 
flicted." 
So seemed it wise and well vmto all ; and betimes on 

the morrow, 
Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides 

and companions, 1205 

Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at 

the Mission. 

/^^^ 
Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each 

other, — 
Days and weeks and months ; and the fields of maize 

that were springing 
Green from the ground when a stranger she came, 

now waving about her. 
Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing, 

and forming 1210 

Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged 

by squirrels. 
Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, 

and the maidens 
Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a 

lover. 
But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in 

the corn-field. 
Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her 

lover. 1215 

^^ Patience ! " the priest would say ; " have faith, and 

thy prayer will be answered ! 
Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from 

the meadow. 
See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as 

the magnet ; • 



EVANGELINE. 89 

It is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has 

planted 
Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller's 

journey 1220 

Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the 

desert. 
Such in the soul of man is faith. ^ The blossoms of 

passion, -^ 

Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of 

fragrance, 
But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their 

odor is deadly. 
Only this humble plant can guide us here, and here- 
after 1225 
Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the 

dews of nepenthe." 

So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter — 

yet Gabriel came not ; 
Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the 

robin and bluebird 
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel 

came not. 
But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was 

wafted 1230 

1219. SilpUum laciniatum or compass-plant is found on the 
prairies of Michigan and Wisconsin and to the south and west, 
and is said to present the edges of the lower leaves due north 
and south. 

1226. In early Greek poetry the asphodel meadows were 
haunted by the shades of heroes. See Homer's Odyssey, xxiv, 
13, where Pope translates : — 

" In ever flowering meads of Asphodel." 

The asphodel is of the lily family, and is known also by the 
name king's spear 



90 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blos- 
som. 

Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan 
forests, 

Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw 
Kiver. 

And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of 
St. Lawrence, 

Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mis- 
sion. 1235 

When over weary ways, by long and perilous 
marches, 

She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan 
forests. 

Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and fallen to 
ruin ! 

Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in sea- 
sons and places 
Divers and distant far was seen the wandering 

maiden ; — 1240 

Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian 

Missions, 
Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the 

army. 
Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous 

cities. 
Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremem- 

bered. 
Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long 

journey ; 1245 

Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it 

ended. 
1241, A rendering of the Moravian Gnadenhiitteno 



EVANGELINE. 91 

Each succeeding year stole something away from her 
beauty, 

Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and 
the shadow. 

Then there aj)peared and spread faint streaks of gray 
o'er her forehead. 

Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly hor- 
izon, 1250 

As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the 
morning. 

V. 

In that delightful land which is washed by the Dela- 
ware's waters, 

Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the 
apostle. 

Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city 
he founded. 

There all the air is balm, and theA)each is the emblem 
of beaut}^ 1255 

And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of 
the forest, 

As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose 
haunts they molested. 

There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, 
an exile, 

Finding among the children of Penn a home and a 
country. 

There old Kene Leblanc had died; and when he 
departed, 1260 

Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descend- 
ants. 

1256. The streets of Philadelphia, as is well known, are many 
of them, especially those running east and west, named for trees, 
as Chestnut, "Walnut, Locust, Spruce, Pine, etc. 



92 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Something at least there was in the friendly streets of 
the city, 

Something that spake to her heart, and made her no 
longer a stranger ; 

And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of 
the Quakers, 

For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, 1265 

Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and 
sisters. 

So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed en- 
deavor, 

Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncom- 
plaining. 

Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her 
thoughts and her footsteps. 

As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morn- 
ing 127« 

Eoll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us, 
Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and ham- 
lets. 
So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the 

world far below her. 
Dark no longer, but all illumined with love ; and the 

pathway 
Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair 

in the distance. 1275 

Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his 

image. 
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she 

beheld him. 
Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence and 

absence. 
Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was 

not. 



k 



EVANGELINE. 93 

Over him years had no power ; he was not changed, 

but transfigured ; 1280 

He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and 

not absent ; 
Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others, 
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had 

taught her. 
So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous 

spices, 
Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with 

aroma. 1285 

Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to 
Meekly follow, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of 

her Saviour. 
Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy ; fre- 
quenting 
Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of 

the city. 
Where distress and want concealed themselves from 

the sunlight, 1290 

Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neg- 
lected. 
Night after night when the world was asleep, as the 

watchman repeated 
Loud, through the dusty streets, that all was well in 

the city, 
High at some lonely window he saw the light of her 

taper. 
Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow 

through the suburbs 1295 

Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits 

for the market, 
Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its 

watchings. 



/ 



94 HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the 
city, 

Presaged by wondrous signs, and. mostly by flocks of 
wild pigeons. 

Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their 
craws but an acorn. isoo 

And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of Sep- 
tember, 

Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake 
in the meadow, 

So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural mar- 

Spread to a brackish lake the silver stream of ex- 
istence. 

Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, 
the 023pressor ; 1305 

But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his 
anger ; — 

Only, alas ! the poor, who had neither friends nor at- 
tendants. 

Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the 
homeless. 

Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows 
and woodlands ; — 

1298. The year 1793 was long remembered as the year when 
yellow fever was a terrible pestilence in Philadelphia. Charles 
Brockden Brown made his novel of Arthur Mervyn turn largely 
upon the incidents of the plague, which drove Brown away from 
home for a time. 

1308. Philadelphians have identified the old Friends' alms- 
house on Walnut Street, now ik* longer standing, as that in which 
Evangeline ministered to Gabriel, and so real was the story that 
some even ventured to point out the graves of the two lovers. 
See Westcott's The Historic Mansions of Philadelphia, pp. 101, 
102. 



EVANGELINE. 95 

Now the city surrounds it ; but still, with its gateway 

and wicket ^^^® 

Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem 

to echo 
Softly the words of the Lord: — "The poor ye al- 
ways have with you." 
Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of 

Mercy. The dying 
Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to be- 
hold there 
Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with 
splendor, ^ ^^^^ 

Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and 

apostles, 
Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a distance. 
Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celes- 
tial. 
Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would 
enter. 

Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, de- 
serted and silent, ^^ 

Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the 
almshouse. 

Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in 
the garden. 

And she paused on her way to gather the fairest 
among them. 

That the dying once more might rejoice in their frar 
grance and beauty. 

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, 
cooled by the east-wind, ^"^ 

Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the 
belfry of Christ Church, 



96 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, 

While, intermingled with these, across the meadows 

were wafted 
Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in 

their church at Wicaco. 
Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on 

her spirit ; 
Something within her said, " At length thy trials are 

ended ; " 1330 

And, with light in her looks, she entered the cham- 
bers of sickness. 
Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attend- 
ants, 
Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and 

in silence 
Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing 

their faces. 
Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow ^ 

by the roadside. 1335 

Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered, 
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, 

for her presence 
Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls 

of a prison. 
And, as she looked around, she' saw how Death, the 

consoler. 
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it 

forever. im 

1328. The Swedes' church at Wicaco is still standing, the 
oldest in the city of Philadelphia, having been begun in 1698. 
Wicaco is within the city, on the banks of the Delaware River. 
An interesting account of the old church and its historic associa- 
tions will be found in Westcott's book just mentioned, pp. 56-67. 
Wilson the 4:)rnithologist lies buried in the churchyard adjoining 
the church. 



EVANGELINE. 97 

Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night 

time ; 
Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers. 

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of 
wonder. 
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a 

shudder 
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets 
dropped from her fingers, 1345 

And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of 

the morning. 
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terri- 
ble anguish. 
That the dying heard it, and started up from their 

pillows. 
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an 

old man. 
Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded 
his temples ; ''^^^ 

But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a 

moment 
Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier 

manhood ; 
So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are 

dying. 
Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the 

fever. 
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled 
its portals, ^^^ 

That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass 



over. 



Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and Ms spirit 
exhausted 



98 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in 

the darkness, 
Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and 

sinking. 
Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied 

reverberations, iseo 

Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that 

succeeded 
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint^| 

like, 
"Gabriel! O my beloved!" and died away into 

lence. 
Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of 

his childhood ; 
Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among 

them, 1365 

Village, and mountain, and woodlands ; and, walking 

under their shadow. 
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his 

vision. 
Tears came into his eyes ; and as slowly he lifted his 

eyelids. 
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his 

bedside. 
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents 

unuttered mo 

Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his 

tongue would have spoken. 
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling 

beside him. 
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. 
Sweet was the light of his eyes ; but it suddenly sank 

into darkness, 
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a 

casement. i37« 



EVANGELINE. 99 

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the 

sorrow, 
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied 

longing, 
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of 

patience ! 
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her 

bosom, 
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, " Father, 

I thank thee ! " isao 



Still stands the forest primeval ; but far away from 
its shadow. 

Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are 
sleeping. 

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic church- 
yard. 

In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and un- 
noticed. 

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside 
them, 1385 

Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at 
rest and forever, 

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer 
are busy. 

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased 
from their labors. 

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed 
their journey I 

Still stands the forest primeval; but under the 

shade of its branches i^^o 

Dwells another race, with other customs and language. 



100 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



n 



Only along the shore of the mournful and misty 

Atlantic 
Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from 

exile 
Wandered back to their native land to die in its 

bosom. 
In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still 

busy ; 1395 

Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles 

of homespun, ■ 

And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, f 

While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neigh- 
boring ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 

of the forest. 



PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 

OF PROPER NAMES AND FOREIGN WORDS IN 
EVANGELINE. 



The diacritical marks given below are those found in the latest edition of Web- 
Bter's International Dictionary. 



EXPLANATION OF MARKS. 

A Dash (~) above the vowel denotes the long sound. 
A Curve ( " ) above the vowel denotes the short sound. 

A Circumflex Accent C) above the vowels a or u denotes the sound of a in cSra 
or of u Ln tQrn ; above the vowel o it denotes the sound of o in 8rb. 
A Dot ( ■ ) above the vowel a denotes the sound of a in past. 
A Double Dot (") above the vowel a denotes the sound of a in star. 
A Double Dot ( ^^ ) below the vowel u denotes the sound of u in trije. 
A Wave C**) above the vowel e denotes the sound of e in her. 

g sounds like z. 
q soimds like s. 
g sounds like j. 
a, e, 6 are similar in sound to &, e, o, but are not pronounced so long. 

Note that the pronunciation of French words can be given only approximately 
by means of signs and English equivalents. A living teacher is requisite to enable 
one to read and speak the language with elegance. 



Abb6 Guillaume Thomas Francis Raynal 

(Sb-ba' ge-yom', etc.). 
Acadie (a-ka-de'). 
Acca'dii. 
Xda'yes. 
Aelian (e^i-Sn). 

Aix-la-Chapelle (aks-la-sha-p51'). 
Amorphas (a-m8r'faz). 
Angelus Domini (Sn'je-lQs d5m'i-nT). 
Xrca'^dia. 

asphodel (Ss'fo-dSl). 
Atchafalaya (Sch-4-fa-li'i). 
Attakapas (St-tuk'a-paw). 
Bacchantes (bSk-kSn^ez). 
Bacchus (bSk'Qs). 



Beau S^jour (bo sa-zhoor'). 

BSnedignrte. 

Bgn'edTct Bgllefontaine'. 

BlSmtdSn. 

Briareus (bri'a-rus). 

Bruges (br^zh). 

Cadie^. 

CSmSn'cheg. 

CSnard'. 

Cape Brgt'on. 

ggl'tic. 

Charente Inferieure (shSr-anhf Snh-fa- 

re-er'). 
Chamisay (shar-nY-za'). 
Chartreux (shar-tre')- 



102 



PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY. 



ci-devant (se-de-vanh'). 

Cotelle'. 

coureurs-des-bois (koo'rer-da-bvva). 

Contes Populaires (kSnht pop-u-lS;r'). 

couvre-feu (koo'vr-fe). 

Dante's Divina Commedia (di-ve'na 

com-ma'dT-a). 
Ducauroi (dii-ko-rwa^). 
EvSn'gel'ine. 
Fii'ta M6rga'na. 
Father Felician (fe-lTsh'i-an). 
Foutaine-qui-bout (f8nh'tan-ke-b6o). 
Gabriel Lajeunesse (la-zhe-ugs'). 
Gaspereau (gas-pe-ro'). 
Gayarr^ (gi-a-ra'). 
Gnadenhlitten (gna-den-hut'gn). 
Grand-Pr6 (granh-pra'). 
Herod'Stus. 

Horae Hellenicae (ho're hel-lSn'I-se). 
Isaac de Razilli (de rii-ze-ye'). 
Kavanagh (k5v'a-na). 
La C16 du Caveau (la kla du ka-vo'). 
La Gazza Ladra (la gat'za la'dra). 
La Have. 
La Salle. 
Le Carillon de Dunkerque (le k5r-e- 

ySnh' de dun-kgrk'). 
L^tiche (la-tesh'). 
Lilinau (le'lT-no). 
Loiiisburg (loo'i-bfirg). 
Loup-garou (loo-gar-oo'). 
mattre de chapelle (ma'tr de sha-p51'). 
Melita (mS-le'ta). 
Minas Basin (me'uas basin). 
Mowis (mo'wes). 



Natchitoches (nSck'e-tosh). 

nepen'the. 

Opelousas (5p-e-loo'sas). 

Outre-Mer (ootr-mSr'). 

Owy'liee. 

Passamaqu5d'dy. 

Pierre Capelle (pe-Sr' kS-pgl'). 

PTs'TquTd. 

Plaquemine, Bayou of (plSk-men', bi'oo). 

Pluquet (pl}i-ka'). 

Pointe Couple (pwSnht koo-pa'). 

Poitou (pwa-too'). 

Ren6 Leblanc (re-na' le-blanhk'). 

Rochelle (ro-shgllO- 

Rossini (rSs-se'ne). 

St. Maur (sSnh mor'). 

Saintonge (sanh-t8nhzh'). 

Sam'son Xgonis'tes. 

seraglio (se-ral'yo). 

Siena (se-a'na). 

Silphium laciniatum (sTl'fY-um la-sYn-T- 

a'tum). 
Straits of Messina (mSs-se'ni). 
Tgche (tash). 
Tous les Bourgeois de Chartreb ^too la 

boor-zhwa' de shartr). 
Upharsin (u-far'sin). 
Utrecht (u'trgkt). 
Vendue (vanh-da'). 
voyageur (vwa-ya-zher'). 
Wachita (wosh'e-taw). 
Walleway (wolVe-wa). 
were-wolf. 
Wicaco (we-ka'ko). 
Xerxes (zerks'ez). 



C^e !B(i)et!5tDe Utttntun Series?. 

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59. Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading.** * 

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62. John Fiske's War of Independence. With Maps and a Bio- 

graphical Sketch. {Double Number, 30 cents ; linen covers, 40 cents.) 

63. Longfellow's Paul Reveres Ride, and Other Poems.** 

64. 65, 66. Tales from Shakespeare. Edited by Charles and 

Mart Lamb. In throe parts. 

[The three parts also in one Tolume, linen covers, 50 cents.] 

67. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.** * 

68. Goldsmith's Deserted Village, The Traveller, and Other 

Poems. 

70. Milton's L'AUegro, II Penseroso, and Other Poems. 



* 11 and 63 also in one Tolume, linen covers, 40 cents ; likewise 40 and 69. ** AI.<;o 
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EXTRA NUMBERS. 
A American Authors and their Birthdays. Pro£crammes and 

Suggestions for the Celebration of the Birthdays of Authors. By A. S. Roe. 

B Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Twenty American 

Authors. 
C A Longfellow Night. A Short Sketch of the Poet's Life, with 

songs and recitations from his works. For the Use of Catholic Schools and 

Catholic Literary Societies By Katharine A. O'Keeffe. 
J> Literature in School; The Place of Literature in Common School 

Education ; Nursery Classics in School ; American Classics in School. Bj 

Horace E. Scudder. 
E Harriet Beecher Stowe. Dialogues and Scenes. 
F Longfellow Leaflets. {Eeich,2iDoubk Number, 30 cents; linen 

Whittier Leaflets. covers, 40 cents.) Poems and Prose 
H Holmes Leaflets. Passages for Reading and Recitation. 

1 The Riverside Manual for Teachers, containing Suggestions 

and Illustrative Lessons leading up to Primary Reading. By I. F. Hall. 
K The Riverside Primer and Reader. (Special Number.) 

In paper covers, with cloth back, 25 cents. In strong linen binding, 30 cents. 
1/ The Riverside Song Book. Containing Classic American 

Poems set to Standard Music. {Double Number, 30 cents ; boards, 40 cents.) 

M Lowell's Fable for Critics. With Outline Portraits of Au- 
thors. {Double Number, 30 cents.) 



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LIBRARY 




With Introductions, Notes, Historical «* 
Each regular single number, 

1. Longfellow's Evangeline.** } 

2. Longfello-w's Courtship of 2 

3. Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish. T)kamatized. 

4. Whittier's Snow-Bound. and Other Poems.** Jf * 

5. Whittier's Mabel Martin, and Other Poems* 

6. Holmes's Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, etc. 

7. 8, 9. Hawthorne's True Stories from New England His- 

tory. 1620-1803. In three parts.t 

10. Hawthorne's Biographical Stories. With Questions.* 

11. Longfellow's Children's Hour, and Other Selections.* 

12. Studies in Longfellovs^. Containing Thirty -Two Topics for 

Study, with Questions and Keferences relating to each Topic 

13. 14. Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. In two part.s.J 

15. Lowell's Under the Old Elm, and Other Poems.* 

16. Bayard Taylor's Lars; a Pastoral of Nor-way. 

17. 18. Hawthorne's "Wonder-Book. In two parts. J 

19, 20. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. In two parts.J 

21. Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, etc. 

22, 23. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. In two parts.J 

24. "Washington's Rules of Conduct, Letters and Addresses.** 

25, 26. Longfellovr's Golden Legend. In two parts.J 

27. Thoreau's Succession of Forest Trees, Sounds, and Wild 

Apples. With a Biographical Sketch by 11. W. Emerson. 

28. John Burroughs's Birds and Bees.* 

29. Haw^thorne's Little Daffydowndilly, and Other Stories.* 

30. Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, and Other Pieces. JJ* 

31. Holmes's My Hunt after the Captain, and Other Papers. 

32. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech, and Other Papers. 

33. 34, 35. Longfellow's Tales of a "Wayside Inn. In three parts. 

[The three parts also in one volume, linen covers, 50 cents.] 

36. John Burroughs's Sharp Eyes, and Other Papers.* 

37. Charles Dudley "Warner's A-Hunting of the Deer, etc.** 

38. Longfello^ov^'s Building of the Ship, and Other Poems. 

39. Lowell's Books and Libraries, and Other Papers. 

40. Ha-wthorne's Tales of the "White Hills, and Sketches.* 
4\. "Whittier's Tent on the Beach. 

42. Emerson's Fortune of the Republic, and Other Essays, 

including The Aaierican Scholar. 

43. Ulysses among the Phaeacians. From W. C. Bryant's Trans- 

lation of Homer's Odyssey. 

44. Edgeworth's "Waste Not, "Want Not, and Barring Out. 

45. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. 

46. Old Testament Stories in Scripture Language. From the 

Disper.'iion at Babel to the Conquest of Cansiau. 

47. 48. Fables and Folk Stories. Second Reader Grade. 

Phrased by Horace E. Scudder. In two parts.t 
49, 50. Hans Andersen's Stories. In two parts.J 

♦ 29 and 10 also in one volume, linon covers, 40 cents ; likewise 28 and 36, 4 and 
5, 15 and 30, 40 and 69, and 11 and 63. 
** Also bound in linen covers, 25 centfj. 
t Also in one volume, linen covers, 45 cents. 
i Also in one volume, linen coven-, 40 cents. 
tt 1, 4, and 30 also in one volume, linen covers, 60 cents. 

Continued on the inside of this cover. 

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